Attack on Titan: Shingeki no Kyojin

[neflight86]

Had to take a few days to process this one. This was pretty dense, lore-wise, and a lot of moving parts to reconcile if the story is to remain tight, and I think it overall did very well.

-One aspect that didn't quite make sense to me is how some "past titans" broke free from Ymir's absolute control.

Ymir loving Fritz presumably happened while she was favoured by him, but she was initially beat up as a slave, let some pigs run off deliberately because she thought they should be free, but after getting titan powers she decided to go back to Fritz as a slave instead of killing him? That logic seems strange, especially since we know now that she wasn't wronged. She actually did let the animals go.

Then she was obeying Zeke until Eren hugged her and said that she must have called him here - and we're alluded to this happening when Eren was sleeping under a tree once. But if that was the case, it'd be because she wanted freedom or something. If love was her driving force and reason to serve, she'd have no need to fight join Eren's fight against non-titans or have any qualms about Zeke (the current royal family representative as far as she's concerned) wanting to sterilise titans.

This love theme actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

I think Zeke and Armin had to beg them to help them instead in the paths. I expect they were in the same existential daze Zeke was in.

That's part of what I love about AoT. It makes this story feel so human to me. Humans are rational actors, but sometimes they act on internal rationale that won't make sense to anyone else; just like real broken people. It would be hard to justify to myself if I hadn't seen similar Stockholm-style patterns of abuse before in life and other outlandish acts that 'made sense to them', like staying in abusive relationships or convincing yourself that any attention is just as good as affection, ect... A slave knew nothing but slavery (not sure how old she was when the village was taken) and she also seemed to value 'freedom' by letting the pigs out; or she wanted the attention of the king... or she is touched.

The lack of clear cut answer is no doubt infuriating to some, but I like it being open to interpretation as the foundation of the rest of the story is easy enough to fill in the gaps myself.

As for obeying royals, I believe it was trying to keep her love of Fritz alive by proxy until she met Eren who resonated with her desire for connection/freedom, as Zeke put it.

-And Ackermans were supposed to be immune to memory manipulation, so "You got your memories back too, right? Of the times Eren came to see us." couldn't have happened.

Fair point. I would guess that the actual founding titan's (Ymir herself) powers can overcome that limitation. This was the first time the show suggested Ackermans could not turn into Titans after the blue mist. Good thing Kenny didn't waste that syrenge, but how would they know for sure if they never tested it?

What I still don't get: are we supposed to believe that Eren only acted/pretended all the stuff he did in the beginning of the show while in truth following his big plan? So when he says he sent that one titan to eat his mom inst9oc Bertholt, was young Eren's crying and wish to save her all fake? Did he pretend to be bad at using the gear during training camp? Did he pretend not to know that Annie is the female titan? And so on?

The show is fairly clear in that the transmission of commands back in time had to be done when he finally made contact with Zeke as a titan (travelling through time to send memories or interfere with Grisha). Contact with Historia seemed to work different as she was not a titan; that let him more freely receive memories, so he didn't get the memories he 'needed' to transform into Jagerest Eren until the medal ceremony at the earliest. In short, he didn't have future memories of him ending the world until the medal ceremony in season 3. From there I suspect he began trying to subverting the future he saw during the 4 year intermission until he accepted them as immutable and kind of gave up on trying and living, by the looks of it. He admitted that having time meld together (past present,future) like that essentially short circuited his mind. If he's a victim of anything, and is worthy of any sympathy, it's for that.

And they used the solution I'd been suggesting since they introduced the euthanasia plan. "Just cure all the titans". No idea why that required killing 80% of the world first.
...
I'm not sure whether it was that, or killing the worm, that cured everyone's titanitis.

I was confused about this as well. Some online breakdowns suggested that it was, in reality, Ymir's satisfaction that cured the Titan affliction, and that her 'hanging on' to Fritz's command due to her misguided love or longing is what effectively trapped all of her biological offspring via the paths. In reality, that is fairly haunting as well that no one (eldian) who has died thus far has been allowed to pass on from... whatever plane of existence the paths represent until Ymir decided to let go. She had the kill switch the whole time, it seems. That's why she's in the background of Eren's broken tooth hole when Mikasa gives him the too-close haircut.

Or, it could have something to do with drawing that worm thing out of the body and killing the founding titan then?

It's basically just there so Mikasa can resolve things. Seeing Mikasa kill Eren despite still loving him allows Ymir to kill Fritz in her mind.

I'm not sure whether it was that, or killing the worm, that cured everyone's titanitis.

...oops, looks like you already said what I was getting at.

Eren wanted to kill most of the non-Paradis population in the world and also destroy their engineering and military capabilities so that after he was dead and the power of the Titans was destroyed, there would temporarily be no capability for a global war. The Titans were already almost getting outmoded as weapons of war, if all he did was erase Titans from existence, the Marleyan Empire just conquers and enslaves the rest of the world.

Excellent point. Thanks for bringing it up. While it obviously doesn't glorify or excuse what he did, there was some reasoning behind it. How that mutual fear played out suggests this entire story is predicated on people having immense power without the means to properly gauge when and how to use it, as humans are such flawed creatures. Eren's an idiot, and he admits as much, but we wouldn't likely be much better in the same position.
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Dense. Rich. Beautiful in themes and storytelling. Even the heavy-handed hokey bits come off as earnest and endearing. Overall, a wonderful, unique, and singular series, and anime is a richer medium with it firmly in the pantheon of greats. I wonder if I’ll ever see another series this effecting again? I’d like that very much.

[DarthEnderX]

Eren's an idiot, and he admits as much, but we wouldn't likely be much better in the same position.

I kinda loved that.

"If someone smarter had all my power, they'd probably have been able to come up with a better plan. But this is the best terrible plan I could come up with..."


At the end of the day though, he still fulfilled his childhood goal of ridding the world of Titans.

[neflight86]

I was confused about this as well. Some online breakdowns suggested that it was, in reality, Ymir's satisfaction that cured the Titan affliction, and that her 'hanging on' to Fritz's command due to her misguided love or longing is what effectively trapped all of her biological offspring via the paths. In reality, that is fairly haunting as well that no one (eldian) who has died thus far has been allowed to pass on from... whatever plane of existence the paths represent until Ymir decided to let go. She had the kill switch the whole time, it seems.

That was my theory.